In hopes of closing the gap between faculty and students at the university, the Iowa State chapter of the NAACP hosted a panel and mixer to help students connect with with staff members to develop a successful academic career and beyond. 

There is a stigma that students generally don’t go out and speak with their professors and other faculty in terms of building professional relationships as valuable resources. One student described the process of meeting your professors to be an important factor in academic success because of the connections that could last a lifetime.

“My simple advice would be to just get up and talk to your professors after class and go introduce yourself,” Cordell Billups, Secretary of Iowa State chapter of the NAACP said. 

Attendees spent their Friday evening at the Sukup Hall Atrium to participate in a question panel and social mingle.

Addressing to a group of about 20 students and staff members, the panelists whom were faculty members, shared their personal stories on the effectiveness of having people to help meet their goals and the journey of discovering their careers.

The common theme that came out from the three panelists was that not everything on their career path was planned out in totality. 

One of speakers, Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Multicultural Student Affairs, Kenyatta Shamburger recalled that as he went into his undergraduate studies to achieve political science major and dual minors in psychology and African-American studies, his original intention was to go to law school.

Shamburger used this example to illustrate that everything he did was to focus on law school. But not everything in life goes as planned.

“After I graduated, life happened and I actually did not end up going to law school,” Shamburger said. 

Shamburger ended up earning a M.S. in leadership and administration at the Atlanta University Center and is now currently persuing a Ph.D in Education in the state of Iowa, where he would have never expected himself to be. 

“Things don’t happen by happenstance,” Shamburger said.

He believes that everything happens for a reason and in context, to the pursuit of a destiny.

The event encourages students go out and begin to seek support systems through their professors and faculty members as a means to create a network of opportunities in the long run. That life can have unexpected events to develop a person’s career and going out to talk and meet new people can bring about those chances that you would not have imagined.